Author Archives: Anna Schurmann

This blogpost is based on a talk I gave at the Evaluation Community of India’s recent “EvalFest” at the Indian Habitat Centre in February. It advocates for using “user-centred” approaches for promoting data use, including understanding- and even creating – new influence pathways. It also highlights that different decisions have specific information needs and these should […]

How to get more bang for your buck with one-time training programs We know that one-time training courses are seldom sufficient to build workplace knowledge and skills. People get trained and then return to their workplaces and often don’t get a chance to use the skills they learned, don’t have the confidence or authority […]

One of the most common problems I see working in the public health system is depleted motivation and engagement. It’s a fundamental challenge to creating and maintaining a strong and responsive public sector. The causes for this vary: lack of formal incentives, an unappreciative organizational culture and an ossified bureaucracy. But the impact is singular: poor […]

I have always wanted to go to Lake Naivasha in Kenya to see flamingos. Pink is my childhood favourite colour and I love birds – I was pretty sure flamingos and me are made for each other. Well, I went to Lake Naivasha as part of an ideation workshop focusing on new contraceptive technologies, hosted […]

In Dreamland, Quinones describes the alarming and silent epidemic of opioid addiction growing across the interior of the US; spread by both pharmaceutical companies aggressively marketing Oxycontin and the distribution of black tar heroin from Mexico. This has eaten up and hollowed out already dwindling communities, increasing social isolation – affecting prosperous and poor neighbourhoods […]

This was originally published in the booklet for the 2016 India Health and Wellness Summit at the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi, Decembere 15th 2016. At this event, I facilitated a panel called “Putting the Care Back into Health Care”. Photos are from the panel session. The panel title, “Putting the care back into […]

Myself and a small team of colleagues recently compiled an innovation toolkit for the ICDS program in MP – you can see them below (Hindi and English versions). To design this, we first interviewed innovators working in the field of maternal and child health, to ask them about what challenges they faced in design, implementation […]

The new science of adolescent development: why it’s important for public health I have been working in the area of adolescent health recently – mostly in the context of innovations focused on life skills education (actually, sex education). I am really enjoying figuring out how to best reach these kids (you can read more about […]

When I design an M&E framework or put together M&E tools – I really like to share key documents with my client to give a background briefing and ensure we are on the same page. In addition, having a cache of key documents handy is helpful to access templates, find standardized indicators, or check technical […]

A Review of the Silo Effect by Gillian Tett Whatever health systems problem I am analyzing, in whatever state, country or region, all have one thing in common: they are created against a backdrop of a fragmented health system. The background section of every report I read or write seems to contain the words “in […]